I’d like to file a petition to officially divide the spring season into two sub-seasons: “Spring,” which comes after Mother’s Day and is usually lovely, and “Unsprung,” the obstinate lovechild of January and July. I don’t like Unsprung, that prepubescent stage between March and April. Every year, I’m hoodwinked into believing that the rain will end, the sun will come out, and we’ll finally be able to stop eating root vegetables. Instead, week after week, I find the same pathetic produce in stores and put up with two months of petulant weather.

Last week, for example, it was 80 degrees in Seattle, and I thought the cold weather was gone. I sailed to my farmers’ market on a boat of absurd optimism, thinking that on some sunny slope within driving distance, a well-tended patch of asparagus might have been bribed out of hibernation. I fantasized about tender, bendy rhubarb and early morels, but the market mocked me. I bought obese parsnips. Again. And kale. Again. And onions. Again. And my hope boat sank.

9 responses to “When life gives you nettles”

I had the same sunny-day optimism heading to the farmer’s market that there would be berries and asparagus or SOME sort of spring-y, tasty stuff. I stared at the root vegetables with no small amount of dismay.

I am constantly confronted by people who wonder where Spring is…as if this were not typical of Seattle. This is only my third “Unsprung” in this lovely city, so I am usually hoodwinked by the many who are complaining…until the other day when I talked to a native who owns an Espresso shack. He mentioned that every year people complain about the same thing, and every year this is how the weather is. This is just SEATTLE.

Yeah, the Northwest isn’t alone – Northern New England has a most sensational “mud season,” and on Cape Cod, April makes you feel like you’re living in an abandoned sandbox. It’s just our human capacity to forget the bad things, even when we experience them year after year. . .

Uh, can I just take a moment to catch my breath and give you a virtual high five for headlining Leite’s Culinaria’s current homepage? Makes me want to celebrate by cooking up a big batch of nettles. (Almost.) Nicely done~